Advising guidelines put together at the University of Arkansas as the undergraduate program grew and developed. Presented at the 2012 SPIN-UP conference in Austin and the PhysTEC leadership meeting at the AAPT summer meeting in Edmonton.

The transit of Venus is a rare astronomical event that has been well documented throughout history. The most recent transit occurred in June of 2004, and the one before that took place more than 100 years earlier in 1882. This site from the South African Astronomical Observatory provides information and first-hand observations of the 1882 event from Wellington, South Africa. Just prior to the event, an observatory was erected at the Huguenot Seminary for girls, and some of the historical observations made from that site in 1882 are provided here for your perusal.

An exercise on the effects of flooding that took place in the upper Mississippi River drainage basin in 1993, using before and after satellite images.

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Analyze the effect of a 1996 controlled flood on a sandbar in Grand Canyon. This exercise uses Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst.

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Midterm examination for a class at MIT covering game theory and its applications to economics. The one-hour-and-twenty-minute open book examination asks open ended theoretical questions. The exam contains questions and solutions.

This is a problem-based learning (PBL) group jigsaw activity. The scenario is:
Students are employees of a unit of the United Nations responsible for coordinating disaster relief after a major disaster (the 2004 Asian Earthquake and Tsunami) occurs. The agency needs to understand the situation in each country so that it can coordinate the work of various governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in the affected area.

Students are divided into Expert Groups (related to academic specialties such as Economics, Medicine, Political Science, Earth Science, etc.) and spend several days researching their topics. Students are then reassigned to one of seven or eight Country Groups, based on the countries most affected by the disaster. Each country group needs someone representing each expert group. In the scenario, these groups correspond to task forces that must determine what the situation is in each country and try to assess the current need for international assistance.

Students research their country, using internet resources, especially the CIA World Factbook and ReliefWeb, the information coordination website of the United Nations. At a large-group roundtable discussion, each group presents what it has found about its assigned country. As a final product, each student writes an individual report summarizing findings and making recommendations for disaster assistance.

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Students are employees of a unit of the United Nations responsible for coordinating disaster relief after a major disaster (the 2004 Asian Earthquake and Tsunami) occurs. The agency needs to understand the situation in each country so that it can coordinate the work of various governments and NGO (nongovernmental organizations) working in the affected area.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

In this multi-part activity, students study seismograms from 3 different seismic stations recording the magnitude 9.0 Sumatra earthquake of December 26th, 2004. By comparing the arrival times of the P and S waves on each seismogram, students determine the distance from the epicenter to each station. Using that data, they can accurately map the location of the epicenter and the precise time of the earthquake. After locating the epicenter, students calculate the position of the tsunami generated by the quake at one hour intervals. From those determinations, predictions are made about how much time people had before the tsunami crashed onto their shores. Finally, students investigate some of the ways people can lessen the impact of the next great tsunami.

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This activity uses data collected from DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) stations in the Pacific following the 2011 tsunami generated off the coast of Japan. Students are required to map the wave front after 5, 10, and 15 hours to better understand the speed and propagation of the tsunami wave.

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This file includes the lab manual write-up for the Au nanosphere and nanorod photoabsorption and scattering Lab experiment for the 2nd year Experimental Contemporary Physics Lab Course. In addition, several handouts are provided along with some additional information for instructors. This work was supported in part by by NSF Awards: ECCS #0701703, DMR #0707740 & DMR #1105121. The experiment can readily be upgraded to an advanced lab by giving more responsibility to the students for lab setup (give them an optical breadboard and parts) and by asking for more in-depth analysis and questions which require more knowledge and experimental skills to answer.

This animation highlighting the phases of the Moon was released by the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

This exercise uses the example of the March 28, 2014 M5.1 La Habra earthquake to teach about earthquake risk and resilience in southern California. Students will examine seismic waveforms recording during the earthquake, as well as read reports from scientific agencies and news outlets to answer basic questions regarding earthquake risk and resilience.

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This interactive addresses the question if we can reduce CO2 emissions by 20% of 1990 levels and help avoid dangerous climate change? Users of this interactive can manipulate changes to various sources and uses (supply and demand) of energy with the goal of reducing C02 emissions in Great Britain by 80% in the year 2050.

This NOAA visualization on YouTube shows the seasonal variations in sea surface temperatures and ice cover from 1985 to 2007. The visualization is based on data collected by NOAA polar-orbiting satellites. El NiÃo and La NiÃa are easily identified, as are the trends in decreasing polar sea ice.

This lab uses Tracker video analysis software to measure and analyze the center of mass of a system of two pucks during a two-dimensional collision. Students measure the initial and final velocity vector for each puck and calculate the center-of-mass velocity of the system before and after the collision and show that it is constant. Tracker can automatically calculate and mark the center of mass in each frame, so it is easy to see that the center of mass velocity is constant and calculate its value from graphs of center-of-mass variables. The zip file contains the lab handout, a video showing a 2-D collision of pucks, and the Tracker file. The video copyright is Flashmedia. To open the Tracker file, download and run Tracker from http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/. Tracker is free. The videos can be used with other video analysis software; however, the handout has screen captures from Tracker and instructions specifically written for Tracker.

This applet simulates the electric field of many charge distributions, including point charges, line charges, dipoles, cylinders, conducting planes and more. The color can be adjusted for field magnitude or potential. Equipotential or field lines are optional. The field strength and number of particles are adjustable. The field can be displayed as a velocity field or a force field. The description is also available in German.

The EJS 2D Ising model displays a lattice of spins. You can change the lattice size, temperature, and external magnetic field. You can modify this simulation if you have Ejs installed by right-clicking within the plot and selecting “Open Ejs Model” from the pop-up menu item. The 2D-Ising model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (Ejs) modeling tool. It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive. Double clicking the ejs_stp_Ising2D.jar file will run the program if Java is installed. Ejs is a part of the Open Source Physics Project and is designed to make it easier to access, modify, and generate computer models. Additional Ejs models are available. They can be found by searching ComPADRE for Open Source Physics, OSP, or Ejs.

The applet simulates various vector fields, including spherical, radial, and constant plane. It is a generalized version of an electrostatic field simulation by the same author. The field strength and number of particles simulated are adjustable. Divergence, curl, and potential can be color-coded. Grid lines, potential lines, or streamlines can be displayed. Directions, specific links to the subject and source code are also included.

Created by David Lane of Rice University, this applet simulates experiments using 2 x 2 contingency tables. You specify the population proportions and the sample size and examine the effects on the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis. The author provides instructions and then five different exercises to practice these concepts. Overall, this is a nice interactive resource that allows users a more hands-on approach to statistics.

This applet simulates the electric field and potential for various charge distributions, including point, line, dipole, spherical and other charges. There is also a simulation, with adjustable speed, of a charge moving close to the speed of light. The field can be displayed as a velocity or force field with particles following field lines, or as field or equipotential lines. The potential and fields can be displayed in 3-D or on a movable 2-D slice. The field strength and number of particles is adjustable, and the charge can be reversed. Source code and directions (also in German) are included.